 as if I'm up here for the very first time. My name is Alyssa Stone. I'm the Senior Director of Programs here at the Cannons Institute, and I'm very excited to welcome you all here for our first monthly storytelling showcase hosted by Corey Rosen. Awesome, welcome. We hope it is the first of many, many visits to Mechanics Institute. Just a couple of quick things about us since you aren't new. Mechanics Institute was founded in 1854. We are a historical landmark cultural center, beautiful library, world-renowned chess program and events center like we're doing this evening. We have chess programs for all levels, including tournaments and scholastic programs, author events, writers groups, book groups, storytelling showcases, classes, our incredible general interest library. We have something for everyone here at Mechanics Institute. So I hopefully will be encouraging you through the night to check out milibrary.org and join us as a member here at Mechanics and be part of the incredible legacy here in San Francisco. We have our bar and concessions open in the back. Please feel free to grab a snack or beverage throughout our program this evening. We want you to be happy while you're here. We've got a bunch of really interesting programs coming up. We have an online author talk with Lydia Kiesling tomorrow who is a fantastic writer for new books and mobility that just came out and that's online at noon. So if you are interested in a smashing geopolitical rom, please check out our talk with Lydia Kiesling tomorrow. We have Cinema Lit, which begins next Friday, September 8th. Our theme this September is Hollywood New Wave. We have four fantastic films all from 1973. We kick off with Serpicoke next Friday at eight. So definitely check that out. Three for members, $10 for the public. You can't get a better movie deal. And then of course we have our Future of Libraries event on Thursday, September 14th, opening the Doors for Democracy, which we are doing in collaboration with AIASF, the architectural organization just at this point. So we hope that you'll join us for one of these fantastic and interesting programs here at Mechanics Institute. Again, that website is milibrary.org. So please join us. Corey Rosen, of course you all know, is a writer, storyteller, and host. He hosts the Mock Story Slams and Grand Slams and has been featured on the Mock Radio Power, Alice Radios, The Skitter & Finney Show, and K-Bots, The Finch Files Podcast. Corey is a performer at FACTS improv, one of the world's foremost centers for improvisational theater and is the author of Your Story, Well Told, Creative Strategies to Develop and Perform Stories that wow an audience. And I know you will all be wowed at this event. We have Corey's books for sale here, so I encourage you to check that out. And without further ado, please give a fabulous welcome to Corey Rosen. Thank you. Well, Lisa, and welcome everyone to the show. Welcome to the season. We want to be starting tonight as the beginning of a month-long, I don't know how long, a monthly residency kind of thing. I will be doing this every month throughout the year, like until next spring. So, you guys are here for the first of a thing. Woo! You're early adopters. Give it up for yourselves. You did it. You were the first one to do it. I am so excited to be here. Who here is a member of the K-Bots Institute? A lot. Yay! Every creator, support. There's a thing about this place that really inspires and excites me. I think that it just kind of exudes a spirit of wisdom and learning and curiosity. And that is connected to what we're gonna be doing with these shows and with the show you're seeing tonight, which is this concept of inviting people, performers, entertainers, storytellers, writers, stand-ups, authors, different people to kind of share a little bit of their perspective, a little bit of their thoughts, interests, and a little bit of their selves through short forms for storytelling or storytelling or whatever. In fact, one of the acts coming in the September show next month is a magician. We have magic, so it's really, there's gonna be a broad spectrum of the kinds of things that you're gonna see up here. And I am so excited and thrilled tonight because the people that I've invited to be in the show all said yes, right? Which I think is amazing. But two, nobody said no. Like when I invited people, I kind of thought some of them were gonna not be available or not everybody said yes. And so I was like, awesome. So we have a really fantastic packed show where you're tonight, each of them, there's six storytellers are gonna do about five minutes or so. And when we were kind of fishing for a theme or a topic, I wanted to kind of leave it open to whatever they wanted to do. So they may or may not adhere to a topic. They may just talk about something that's of interest to them. But the topic that I've been thinking a lot about and some of them may also talk about it is education. Because it's August, it's the beginning of sort of the educational year, the start of a new thing. And even though it's not the calendar year, it is the Jewish New Year. Like that's always kind of this sense of a beginning in that sense. But it's also this cycle that we've all gone through with our education that fall is a beginning. Fall is the start of another cycle of putting behind what we've worked before and going ahead to what's next. And in my own personal life, there's a lot of dramatic upheaval that's kind of right at the horizon. I have a senior in high school this year, a senior in high school. And I feel personally like I am in this crazy tug of war, between this feeling as a parent and as a person to say, do exactly what I did. And this feeling that I have as a senior in San Francisco and in the California. Just do whatever you want. You do you. So it's like, do what I want. Do what you want. Do what I want. Do what you want. And my son in the middle is like, kind of like, what, what, what, what. So we've been on tour all summer. We've been going to California schools. We went to East Coast. We did the big drive from Boston across the New England and Pennsylvania. And we caught a bunch of minor league baseball games along the way. Because there's a lot of minor league baseball through Pennsylvania. And so we got to Pittsburgh and Rochester and Syracuse and Colgate. Everywhere we were, we saw schools that were so different, right? Like you've got Colgate, which is in the middle of a cornfield, right? And you've got UCLA, which is the middle of Westwood. It's just like in the city. And everyone I say to Henry, I go, I go, what'd you think? And he goes, I liked it. So no decisions were made, because that's of course, with the grandparents like, well, did he decide? No, he liked everything. So my hope for this year is that my son starts not liking things so much. And maybe if we just whittle away, we'll eventually find that something either that I wanted to do or that he wants to do will stick. Thank you. Okay. So what we have for you tonight, as I mentioned, is six presenters, performers, I don't know what to call them because they're so varied, but I'm just thrilled and delighted to bring up the first of them right now. So please welcome to the stage a wonderful person and storyteller and friend, William Humnick. I had once in a lifetime opportunity to be reborn. In 2007, I stepped off an airplane in Nepal, birthplace of the Buddha. I was newly married, had a new career, and I was motivated to make those hard, positive changes in my life that I'd always put off. A year earlier, I was living in San Francisco. I was single, 35, living in an apartment share. Now I was a boring financial analyst. I quit. I became a U.S. diplomat to travel the world. Am I going away partying? I met this intelligent, funny, beautiful woman. We got married. And so I headed to Nepal with the opportunity to make the positive changes for not only myself, but for this new marriage. So when we went to Nepal, we started doing fabulous things. By the Vomo sand, we rescued this mangy street mutt called her Vomo. We tracked to the Mustang region of Nepal and were guests of the former team. But there was still something, something in me. I needed to do something big, something to prove that I was truly reborn. So in late May of 2008, I'm tossing and turning in my sleeping bag in a tent on Kumu Ice Ball at Everest Base Camp. Elevation 17,600 feet. Glaciers are rumbling around me. The ice beneath me is cracking and drowning. I couldn't sleep. I was worried about the physical mental challenges that lie ahead. So next morning I woke up and I drank what I could from my half frozen water bottle. And I stripped down to my shorts, my shirt. And at the start of the whistle, I began the marathon, the Everest Marathon. 150 other runners running 26.2 miles through the Himalayan mountains. And so it was really dangerous because there was lots of rocks and ice and after about 20 minutes, the dopamine came down. The runners high. And it's hard for me to kind of explain what this is like if you haven't been there, but for me, it's like being a dancer. Like a ballet dancer just floating down the trail. I don't have to think about anything I'm euphoric. I just bounce off one rock to the next and go to the roots and the next thing I know, I'm at the finish line. No broken bones, no shed of water. But that's all kind of funny because in real life, I can't dance. I dribble over my own two feet. So two days later I'm back and can't make do with my wife. And it's time to face that mental and physical challenge I told you about. The marathon? Uh-uh. That wasn't it. I was gonna face something much, much more difficult. So the next night, my wife and I went to the Bacchettini neighborhood of Kathmandu. We get dinner at the Rupaus Cafe. My stomach was in knots. I was really nervous. Tried to delay the meal. Didn't want to finish. My wife says to me, it's time. You ready? Not really. She grabbed my hand and we walked up the stairs to the dance studio. I had signed us up for dance lessons. And so we had some kind of dance that they teach in the hall. Bollywood? No, thank you. I'm not that bored. But it's also less interesting, one more practice. So back when I was growing up in Rochester, New York, my 60-something-year-old parents every Sunday would labor in the yard and doing housework. And after dinner, they would come out. My father would drink one bottle of Genesee beer. He'd take the bottle cap with the end. He'd stick it through his forehead. He would stay there for hours because it was sweat and corny, I guess. Ah! And then they'd plug in this cheap, portable radio brush. And they would dance, cheek-to-cheek, stomach-to-stomach to the sounds of Big Van in the grasshoppers. This was the only time my parents, parents of nine kids, I'd ever seen show affection towards one another. I couldn't imagine anything more wonderful. So back in Kathmandu, it's time for the dance lessons. And so the instructor's ready. She's showing us the moves and, you know, I'm dancing with my wife, ouch! I step on her toes. And then a little while later, urgh, I take a triple of her feet. But I'm still, I still have the energy to do this. And the dance instructor then forces us to rotate partners. And so I'm dancing with this Nepalese woman, ouch! I step on her toes, and I'm not so great. And we rotate again, and the next Nepalese woman had seen what had happened, and she kept her toes away from us. At the next rotation, I grab my wife. I wouldn't let her go. I said, I am not dancing with anyone else. This is too embarrassing. And a little while later, frustrated, I walked out and I never went back. So I now find myself, you know, older in life, and it's really hard to be reborn now. My wife and I, you know, struggle to pay the bills and raise our preteen. So I wish more than ever that I have not given up on those dance lessons. I feel like I failed her, and I failed myself. For as difficult as the times may be, I still can't imagine anything more wonderful than dancing with my wife and my master. This should fix the little popping. Did you guys hear a little popping once again? Okay, so William will be accepting dance tips. If anybody has them all on their way out, you can see if you can teach him the cha-cha slide or something. And without further ado, I'm gonna bring up our next storyteller. This is somebody that if you've ever gone to the Moth or the Alameda, or the Open Stories, like really any story show in the Bay Area in the last few years, you have seen this man. And I am privileged to call him a friend and look forward to anything that he ever says. One of my favorite things about JP, this is the next storyteller, is that I've learned this about JP recently, is that he doesn't decide before he comes to a show what story he's gonna tell until he's there. Which I think is a really important and I think profound way to approach the concept because who knows what the room needs until you're there, you're in the room. So what you're about to get is exactly what this room needs. So please welcome JP Frey! JP Frey! I'm in the R.A. and I'm watching Jennifer Beesley. She skates out under the wall with all her friends. They are all wearing short-haired jeans. They all have a multi-colored grey coat on, even though it's hot out here. It's her birthday party. And I watch them all apply and we apply Bonnie Jackson lip smackers lip gloss. All the girls wore watermelon. Except Jennifer, she would not wear an apple. And as they went around and around the ring, it was like some sort of weird candy store where they would go around. Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon. Honey, an apple. It's a COVID birthday party. And I was not a fan. I live on the wrong side of the creek. The boys that were invited, they'd play football and baseball and they'd wear their hats backwards. And I don't even have a hat. I'm watching from the arcade and those boys are sitting at the table, Mrs. Beesley, while the girls go around and around, I came early so that I could steal the quarters out of the tampon machine in the boys' bathroom. But somebody beat me to the condom machine in the boys' bathroom because it's empty. And I'm pretty sure it's Adam who's playing Astroids and Space Invaders. And I'm not sure if it's him or her. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Do you know, he's a год older than me. He has that dirt spot. That's a mustache then you think it's dirty until you get close and you realize it's hair and that makes him seem blocks menacing than me. What he wants is the girls to go around and around. I occasionally skate by the party to act like I'm part of it. But those boys give me the look that territorial doc places wrong. And Adam does the same thing, he gets the same love, and we're watching the girls go round and around, and everyone is watching the girls go round and around, and I see Adam escape close to the table again, and this time, the speedest move I've ever seen in my life, he scoops up Mrs. Peeley's purse and snuffs it under his sweatshirt, and skates to the snack shack, and then to the back room, and I look around, no one saw him but me, so like a magnet, I skate first to the snack shack, then to the back room, and he is in a stall, and he has the purse open, and he already has the cashed out, and I look at him and he's on, he does not say a word, he splits the cash in two and hands me the cash, I take the money, he skates by me and puts the purse in the trash can, just goes, I put the money in my pocket, and I skate back to the arcade, about 10 minutes goes by before there is a calamity, there is stuff going on at the birthday table, and all the kids are looking under chairs and tables lifting things up, and I hear Mrs. Peeley say, my credit cards, my checkbook were in that purse, I have no way to pay for the party, and that's when a door opens for me, and I skate to the back room, and I open up the trash can, and I pull out the purse, I'm not dumb enough to skate right back to the party, I come up to the snack shack and say, hey I found this purse in the boys' bathroom, and the guy behind the counter goes, I think it's over there, follow me, and he skates out from behind, because he wears skates while he works at the store, and he skates to the party with me behind him, and he goes, hey man, this kid, I think you found your purse, and I hand the purse like this, and she goes, wait, wait, don't you live near us? Say, yeah, I live across the creek from you, she goes, oh my god, well thank you so much, oh my god, you should join us, and I eat pizza with the girls, and Adam is lurking by the arcade watching me whole time, it's couples' game, must brand Susie, must brand Sam, and I'm holding Jennifer Pease's hand as we go round and round, and Adam over by the arcade mouse, later I take Jennifer to the snack shack, I buy her an ice cream with her balls, but I can tell you that Bonnie Bell lipsmatters, Green Apple does not taste like green apple, it tastes like wax, thank you. And JP will be in the back giving Green Apple kisses after the show, dance lesson, or a Green Apple kiss, JP is there, all right, now I'm thrilled that Ellie is here again with us, but was anybody here for my show in May, anybody here for the May showcase? No, Rick, you are in for a treat, because Ellie Donovan is, let me just say she's blowing up on the scene, the performance scene, the stand-up scene, everything, she's blowing up, and you guys are seeing her at the launch, at the springboard, and she is springing tomorrow from here to Italy, not to tour though, just to make but she's still going, she's going to Italy, so please welcome the one and only, Hayley Donovan! The shows he puts on have loved all of the learning I've done from him, so let's buckle in, right? And when he said the theme of education, I thought, perfect, I used to be a first grade teacher, so that is like, yes, that is gold to me, paid for like, or it set me up for therapy for like 10 years. So like I said, I used to be a first grade teacher, any teachers in the house tonight? Oh, yes, wonderful, thank you, you all are rock stars, and happy beginning of the year. I'm still very promising that with happy beginning of the year, but it hopefully is this. And I'm a little bit disappointed in my former teachers, and I'll tell you why. They were great, they taught me how to read, they taught me about social emotional learning, but they failed to recognize what I'm pretty sure is an extreme case of ADHD. I have like two different settings, I have a slow ramble, and then I have a mild fast ramble, where I sound like one of those little kettles on the stove, like just go, go, go, go, sound like that was a prime opportunity to like, pull the kiddo out. So as an adult, I was researching my symptoms on WebMD, like any responsible physician would want their patient to do, and I realized it was either adult ADHD, or WebMD also said it could be inflammation of the testicles. And like, I'm not a scientist, but like, I'm gonna go with adult ADHD. So yeah, so like I said, I used to be a teacher, and then beginning to think that all of the attributes of having been a teacher, I kind of started to cram my style in the dating scene. Because as a teacher, it was our job to praise mediocrity. You could have kiddos, like I taught first grade, you would have six year olds coming up to you, like shoving a Tupperware of dirt in your face, being like, look at this chicken noodle soup, and you'd have to reach way down in your energy stores, and be like, wow, that looks delicious. Did you make that yourself? And so I'm a male middle manager's dream. I'll be on these dates, and they'll be like, oh, let me show you this really great, this really great tortilla soup I made. And they'll like show it to me on the phone, and it's just like, some ingredients thrown together, but me, I'm like, aha, I gotta like uplift their spirit. I'm like, wow, that looks amazing. Did you make that yourself? And he'll be like, oh, you know, like Bluey Brent, same thing. Same thing. And then if I'm really, really reaching for my teacher skills, I'll be like, that is so resourceful of you, wow. Other things that my dates just love about becoming a teacher is the ability to keep my thoughts in. I'm used to kids being like, they're out of chocolate milk. And to that, I want to be like, sounds like a personal problem, but I have to be super loving because it sucks when they're out of chocolate milk. Or other kids, like a girl would come up to me and be like, he messed up my cram box, and then just ran away like nothing happened to which I have to be, oh sweet girl, they usually mess up your cram box and just run away like nothing happened. Like buckle up. But no. So I was like, but there's a flip side to the praising mediocrity point. As a teacher, dating me likely was probably pretty frustrating because I was always exhausted. I was just like, oh, well educated, that lady, just giving my tote bags together and just like hoping I would make at home, get my exercise class and hit the college. Yeah, it's exhausting. You work so hard. And so I'd be on a date, like I would see like white dust on my pants. And he'd be like, oh, you like to party? And I looked down and he'd be like, oh, that's just goldfish cracker though. And the idea of giving instructions in bed, like forget it, not gonna happen. We have been giving instructions all day long, figure out what to do. Don't make me write an email home. Like dear Mr. and Mrs. College, Jimmy had a tricky day today. Please talk to him about the importance of identifying your shapes, why we take turns, and why we practice patience. All right. But like I said, I did leave the teaching profession. I loved my kiddos. I loved parents, but it was time to leave. It was time for a new chapter. So I'm out here trying to assess what to do next. You can imagine a teaching you can imagine those stock options. So it was time to do something next. I'm like running through all of the different tangible skills and like, I'd be a great mechanic. I duct tape my Honda together like three times a week. So that's a winning option right there. I'd be a great Uber driver. I make it a practice to drive all of my dates home the next day, regardless of how it has gone. Really bought those five stars. Yeah, first year last. But I think the shining profession that really stands out that I'm really going to be going for is that of a position because I'm just one web empty article away from being next. Sorry. My name is Haley Donovan. Give it up for yourselves. So good. And thank you for making the time. Haley literally packed for her trip to Italy then came over here. So her love needs is probably gone. All right. So we are let's move it right along. Are you guys ready for change of pace? Okay, good. Because you're about to bring up somebody that I want to say from the like, from when I really started doing both shows, Charles was right there, right? How long have you been doing like storytelling in this whole world, Charles? Six years. Six years. So Charles has been doing this a long time and he's got so many wonderful kids and you're about to experience one of them. So please welcome to the stage, Charles Shine Blum. Before I want to say, J.P. Simpson took the point. So give it up for J.P. This story takes place in a small town in rural New Jersey in October 2001. The place is not so important to this story, but the time is because it haven't done that yet. October 2001 is like 19 days after September 11. So in the same xenophobia in this country was at one of its all time highs. I was in high school. I just got my driver's license and that year I was taking a German 101 class. And that year a German exchange student came to stay with a host family in our school and he and I that are becoming fast friends. And the cool thing about having a friend who speaks the language you're trying to learn is that the light you practice your very basic language skills with them. So loosely translated our conversation would be something to the effect of, hello Florian, how are you doing? I'm Charles. What is your favorite color? Because you're like, hello Charles, I'm Florian, I'm doing well and that's always my favorite color is blue. So one day I go home and I tell my parents about Florian. I say, mom and dad, I got this great new friend, he comes to Düsseldorf, he wants to practice my language skills, my studies are going so well. But the best part, the best part about Florian is he's getting his pilot's license and he wants to take me flying. Good time to remind you all of the proximity of this story to September 11. So my parents said, wow, Charlie, I'm so excited you have to see friends and you want to practice your language skills, your studies are going so well. But do us a big favor and don't go flying with Florian, to which I replied, you got it. So the next day I go to school and I see Florian, I say, hello Florian, boss, it's not an evening spa though. And Florian said, yes, that's always my favorite color, it's still blue. But Charles, would you like to go flying with me this weekend in an aro play, to which I replied, you got it. So that weekend rolls around and I drive myself to the little airport in our town and Florian's giving me a tour of the plane. And if you've never been in a small propeller aircraft, it's not like a sedan, there's buttons everywhere, shoulder to shoulder, and Florian's giving me a tour, he says, Charles, when's the wise man, don't touch anything. That is the ejection. I'm just joshing with you. That is the ejection. And I know he was kidding, but pointing, don't touch anything, exactly about the ground that your aircraft kills its foe. So we take off and it's amazing. It's following New Jersey, all the trees are changing colors, we fly over to high school, we fly over to my parents' house, we both agree it's very funny that they forbid me to do this, and here we are, just a few thousand feet above their heads. And we fly around for a little while and eventually Florian says, Charles, do you mind if I practice some manubo for my flight examination? Now, Florian is paying like $190 an hour plus fuel for us to be here, so far be it for me to prevent him from doing some boring flight maneuver. So I say, yeah, of course, he pulls back on the yogi, he says, thank you, and I don't think anything of it. So I'm not super well versed in aviation, but my understanding is in order to escape the pull of gravity, an airplane has to be moving forward at all times. All I ask is that you just keep that in mind for this next part. So we're pointed up in the sun, and the engine starts to make this horrible sound. It goes, go, go, go, go, go, and it dies. That's correct. And there's this amazing moment where there's no wind sound, there's no engine sound. We're just coasting blissfully, weightlessly in the stratosphere. And this moment of bliss lasts for exactly one moment before the true master of this whole situation grabs the front of the aircraft and says, oh, I'm driving and pull this towards the earth. And all of a sudden, those beautiful trees are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Now, the timbre is going one way, the spin-off is going the other way, all these lights are flashing, and Floyd's got the hand of the yoke, the key to the ignition, and I got an arm on the armrest, the hand of the roof, and a completely white knuckle, and a completely muckered shut, and I'm not talking about my lips, and Floyd's going, Floyd, what is happening? Charles, it seems the mechanism that typically moves the fuel mixture of engine is not functioning in a way that it typically would in a situation such as this. Stop fishing for English words, it's a freaking engine. But, seriously, I realize this is the exact same story of Nicarus. And if you're not familiar with it, it's a story from Greek mythology where this father gives a son these wax wings that says, son, you can fly anywhere you want with these, but don't fly too close to the sun, for they will melt and you will die. And Nicarus says, you got it, and he immediately flies way too close to the sun, they melt it, and he died. Nicarus is killed by his own humans, when he disobeyed his father, flew off to the uncharted territory, and that's about to happen to me, but I'm spoiler alert, I can survive. The engine first backs away, and we level up. As it turns out, this is a totally normal procedure. In order to get to the pilot's license, you have to improve the important nose in the aircraft with the sun, kill the engine, go in the freefall, turn the engine back on, and level off. In fact, you have to get more or less the perfect score in this because, reportedly, if you crash the airplane in the process, you don't get your pilot's license. So we land, Cory knows. So we land, Nicarus says, uh, Charles, that was an interesting one, but uh, Charles, thank you so much for coming with me. I will see you on Monday, perhaps my favorite color will be orange. So I'm driving home, I got my hands attended to, I'm still completely white, I'm still completely airtight, and I'm reflecting on this day that I had, because I was a good kid, and I couldn't believe that I disobeyed my parents one time, and then I had what I considered to be a near-death experience, and I'm driving, and I found it myself, and I'm never going to lie to them again, and I'm never going to disobey them again. I get to my parents' house, and I close the driveway, and I put the car in the car, and I walk up to the front door, and like clockwork, my father opens the front sliding door, takes a step out, and says, hey kiddo, how was bowling? So that's typically the end, and I've told this story a few times, but it's just really quick, if I have the, oh, it's looking at squash, just really quick appendix to this, uh, or an apple-like book. So this started a life-long fascination with aviation, believe it or not, and so I never told my parents that story until late in my 30s, like I almost doubled that amount of time in my life, but so once in a few years, I will pay some ex-Marine fighter pilot a few hundred dollars to just do sadistic things to an airplane with the inside of it, so this past weekend, I went out to San Diego, and I spent a lot of time upside down in a biplane over the Pacific Ocean, and I still don't tell my parents before I do these things, so they don't worry about me, but when I landed, I sent them the video footage, and I kid you not, I will show you the text message. My father just says three words, how was bowling? Nice, that was all just a pre-show, now the show's gonna be good. Thank you for the lights, that was such a good idea, right? It's like a life-full moment. Okay, the next, our next performer, our next act, is an incredible human being that I feel so blessed to have crossed paths with in my life. He is the founder and artistic director of the Afrosolo Artist Festival, still, and highly acclaimed award-winning performer and educator and activist in San Francisco, and I had the great good fortune of meeting and getting to actually work together with him last year on an incredible pilot program called The Operating Youth, which was a program pairing the San Francisco Opera and the Centennial Season with the Public Library, doing free classes and storytelling hosted in the Public Library and funded by The Opera, and Newsflags were doing it again this year, so look out for information about that, it's gonna be starting up this fall if anybody's interested in participating, so we had the great fortune of meeting and working together, and now you get a chance to hear him do what he does, so please welcome the one and only, Thomas Simpsons! If you can see me, you're seeing that I'm sitting down, you found your desire to some situations, so I have to sit. If you talk with your mouth over, it is first to ask you a question. Do you ever have to take a test? Whether school or become a lawyer, become a doctor, or something else, and the thing is, you knew you were going to pass. It happened to me once. I was in college. I was taking this class and I started up, down, around, backwards and forwards. I knew the material. I knew I was going to make an A, so I wasn't even worried about it. Before I go there, let me say a little bit about me. As he said, I'm from Nashville, Tennessee. My father had a very great education. He grew up in the hills of Tennessee, and after the third grade, he had to work in the fields. This was around 1915, 16. So he didn't get much education. My mother, she had an 11th grade education. I'm from a family of 11, so I heard those, you don't hear that from the speaker every day, do you? So going up, we were kind of cool in Nashville. So going to college was completely out of the round. But this was during the time of the Civil Rights Movement. When education began to be very important, my parents began to say, get your education, and they don't matter, can take it away from you. Go to school. So I went to school, make school, elementary, junior high, did good, went to East High School in Nashville, did good, was in the National Honor Society. Going to college was for somebody else, mostly people didn't look like them. But one of my sisters got into college, and then another brother got into a college, and then another one got into a college, and I began to think, well maybe, maybe I can't, I don't know what they do in colleges, but maybe I can go also. Around the 11th grade, I got serious about going. I thought, I don't know. I was about one school. The school was called David Lipscomb College at the time. It's called David Lipscomb University now. It's a church-coordinated school. I was thinking about going into religion. I applied, and I got in. I thought, oh my God, I'm going to college. I'm smart. I found that until I got my first English paper back. It had so much red on it, it looked almost like a little flag. So for this course, I'm going to tell you about this speech class, final exam. I had to do good to make an A. The college is, at that time, probably 99.9% white. So I was one of the few African Americans there. So I wanted to do good. Got the test. And when I looked at the test, I saw there were some questions that were kind of essay type questions, narrative questions. And I remembered that that teacher who gave me that flag said, if you ever take a test, then there are essay questions, outline your answers before you start. So after the teacher told me to put it in my desk, I had to get some paper out to outline those questions. I did. And I was glowing. It was a large class that's here, about 30 students, but there were only about 10 or 12 of us in there, a lot of space with, you know, empty desks. I would work on the test, and I'd come across a question. I'd work on it a little bit and put it on the table and work on it a little bit. I was just going to town working on these questions. One of my professors, teachers, came into the classroom and they were talking and I was having a great time. I knew I was going to make a name. No question about it. So I finished the test. I get ready to turn my paper and I looked down to my notebook and the notebook was open and not only was it open, it was open to one of the answers to the question on the test. So I scooped up my things, took my paper in and scooped it out, and nobody said anything. I thought, I made it. A couple of days later, I did this telephone call. Hello, Mr. Simpson. This is Professor, so-and-so. Could you stop by my office, please? Yes, sir. I'll be very happy to stop by your office. I stop by his office. He says, have a seat. He says, Mr. Simpson, there's a little problem. Really? He said, one of your fellow students said that you cheated on the exam. If you confess, everything will be fine. I know that you needed a good grade on this test to get a good grade in the class, so if you just confess, you'll be fine. I said, I didn't cheat. I knew the material. I studied really hard. So we went back and forth to confess. I didn't cheat. Confess. I didn't cheat. Confess. I didn't cheat. And I had one of those aha moments that said, okay, Professor, why don't you just ask me the questions orally? And if I know the answers, then you know it probably didn't cheat. If I don't know the answer and I got it right on the paper, then you can say that I cheated. He fumbled around for a few seconds and then said, okay, he gave me the test formally, and I've aced it. There were a couple of questions that he would get me credit for. He said they were wrong, and I think they were right. I wound up with a 95. I went in the course. I felt happy. My parents felt happy. Well, one thing is, I was very close to that teacher. He's one of the one of those doubles at the conservative school, so we had a very good relationship. But after that test, he's changed. Even though I didn't answer the questions, whenever we would see each other around campus, he would kind of get me along. He'd go, ah, like, what did you do? I know you did something. I can't figure it out when I know you did something. What he did was, I had started my tush off. And I guess what it means to me, fortunately for that time, I was pregnant. Yeah. So whenever possible, be prepared. Thank you. Okay, terrific. All right, we are amazingly on schedule. And we're down to our last act. So let's hear from everybody so far that's been a pleasure to have you all here. We are still going to have some snacks at the end, so people, when it's all done, want to still mosh a little bit. And Alyssa mentioned at the beginning, but I do have a couple copies of my book over by the door. So if you want to check it out or if you can buy it, it's all kind of self-served. There's a little place where you can do a Venmo, QR code, or what happens, $15, if you're interested. Okay, it is time for our last performer, somebody that I crossed with several years ago, and to see her through the whole pandemic. And as the storytelling world is, we are all connected by stories. And so something that this particular individual does is always makes me smile, always makes me happy. And I'm really delighted to welcome her to this stage. So please welcome a Moth Grand Slam winner, the one and only, Mindy Meyers. Our Holocaust survivors. They were both in concentration camps. They both had very difficult traumatic lives. They came to America and survived. But the manifestation of their trauma sort of focused on scarcity. So they really didn't spend a lot of money on anything. They washed out jars and lined them up on the window sill. And they kept egg shells, if you can believe it, and crushed them up and put them with water and put it around the bottom of plants. You can relate. Yeah. So they also, my father, collected, so bizarre, collected those tiny little dental floss, white little containers, just in case he went to Jones Beach and he wanted to collect a little salt and put it on his final. So yes. So there was a lot of scarcity. And there really, we didn't spend money on much of anything. Twice a year, there was a sale in Brooklyn with this guy named Natan Gorlon. He was Israeli and he had a huge warehouse in Brooklyn. And twice a year, he invited Holocaust survivors who wanted to buy clothing for their children. And so twice a year, my mother would take me to Natan Gorlon and what it looked like. So this was where the manufacturer would bring their boxes and the trucks would come and take it to Bloomingdale's or Macy's, something like that. And so it was a huge hangar of a place with clusters of boxes everywhere, enormous place. And my mother would take me and we'd wander through the boxes and she opened them up and made me take off my clothes and try on these dresses. And over the years, I had a lot of very lovely things. But then I started getting older and the girls started to appear. And so at around 14 years old, I told my mother I'm not going to take off my clothes anymore. So my mother was Austrian and she didn't believe girls needed bras until after 15 years old. So I didn't even have a bra. So and then there were these guys, huge guys with muscles carrying boxes on their shoulders, obbling this little long girl with budding boobs, taking off her clothes. And they were, you know, looking at me and making comments at me and, you know, my mother said, she's singing a happy song. Okay, so at 14 years old, I told my mother I am not going to take my clothes off anymore. And she said, if you don't take off your clothes, I'm not going to buy you the clothes. And I said, okay. And then she said, if you don't take off your clothes, I'm never going to be buying you clothes again. And I said, okay. And she looked up to her word. So I wore my cousin Lenore and Erica's clothes, hand me downs for the next several years. And the old clothes that I had still fit me. And I worked. So I taught guitar lessons, I babysat. And then I got a job pumping gas at Texaco. And at around 15, 16 years old or so, I had enough money to buy myself a pair of pants, but not just any pants. The coolest pants. And these were bell bottoms with a flare coming from the knee. And not only that, there were fringes going down the sides. So when you went like this, shimmy shimmy. And I felt so I went to school. And this kid said his name was David Levin. I can't believe I remember that. David Levin says to me, hey, Elfish. And I thought, Elfish? Well, that's very interesting. We were just reading the Hobbit. And I thought, because I'm short. And so throughout the rest of high school, he would call me Elfish. And I felt, all right. And then years later, there was the high school reunion about five years after high school was over. And he sent me, I see him across the room, and he calls out, hey, Elvis. My God, Elvis. He had a cast that did a show, 27, right here. Tickets in the same way. So just go to the McKinsey Institute website. Let's hear it from McKinsey Institute.